


compass of the soul

by elixirsoflife



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Community: HPFT, Except the Jily hasn't happened yet because Lily is in DENIAL, F/M, Help, I wrote this past midnight so it is probs shit, I've started a fully blown fic, M/M, Remus accidentally holds Sirius' hand on the bus, Remus can't stop swearing, Sirius is v beautiful, Soulmate AU, This has developed quite a bit from the bus scene, jily, shit happens, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 16:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11786946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elixirsoflife/pseuds/elixirsoflife
Summary: He turned to Remus, still smirking in a way that made the back of Remus’ neck flush pink. “You know, I’ve always dreamt of being groped on public transport,” he said at last, “but that’s not quite what I imagined.”Remus could only stare at him. “I – what?”





	1. wicked smiles, wandering hands and the worst day in the world

**Author's Note:**

> this is the modern!soulmate au that no one asked for, but i'm writing anyway!! ft. remus who is 100% done with everything, the worst bus ride in the world and wolfstar in the making. warning: lots of swears ahead.
> 
> written for ineke's "oops - i held a stranger's hand!" challenge that was inspired by me holding a stranger's hand on the bus. bc i am slick af
> 
> (also, ahem, what do you mean i used remus to channel my RAGE at buses?? when have i EVER gone on a twitter tirade about buses???
> 
> also, this will probably turn into a longer thing, but i'm gonna mark it as a one shot for now just in case my muse flakes out on me again)

Remus was having the shittest fucking day ever.

Technically, it was only nine thirty in the morning, but that didn’t matter because it was a shit as fuck morning and he was sure that meant it would be a shit as fuck day and probably a shit as fuck evening as well because _life_ in general was shit as fuck.

He was also prone to being overdramatic when the situation called for it.

It had all kicked off at around seven thirty the evening before when his mum, helpless as ever whenever anyone in need came knocking on the door, had been talked into babysitting their next door neighbours’ baby while they went on date night. A favour that had meant to last until eleven pm at the latest had turned out to take up the entire night since there had been a car crash on the bloody M60 and the couple hadn’t been able to make it past the ensuing traffic jam.

Remus, who hadn’t minded the baby _much_ since she had been asleep while he’d worked on the first of his assignments, quickly discovered a deep hatred for anything under eighteen months old. Dora had howled throughout the entire night, effectively butchering any chances he had of writing a coherent essay. She’d even kept him up until there had been actual _birds_ tweeting outside.

Exactly two hours later, the alarm on his phone had screamed into his ear.

So of course, he had smothered it with his pillow and fallen right back asleep until his mother, on a sudden stroke of realisation, had crept into his room and tentatively shook him awake with a, “Darling, don’t you have class at nine?”

It had been eight twenty.

The uni was just under an hour away at this time.

So of course, Remus had practically flown out of bed, had the quickest shower known to man where he didn’t even get to give the writing engraved across his chest its cursory glance of the day, and had reached across Dora to grab a piece of toast from a plate on the table –

When she’d promptly thrown up on his arm.

Forty minutes later, he sat at the bus stop and scowled at the grey streets of Cokeworth. It figured that on the day when everything else in the world seemed to be going wrong for him, the bus was fucking twenty minutes late. Not five, not even ten, but fucking _twenty._ What the fuck was _wrong_ with Stagecoach? What was wrong with the goddamn world in general? Was it Shit on Remus Day or something?

He tipped his head back and drew a deep breath in through his nose.

He needed to calm down. Sure, today was off to an awful start, but if he kept up like this, he’d end up taking it out on Lily when they met up at lunch and Lord knew offending Lily Evans wasn’t something anyone wanted to do. More likely than not, she’d simply brush it off with a pointed remark that would make him feel even worse than before. In the unlikely event that he did manage to hurt her, the sharp glimmer of tears in her eyes would probably destroy him before her soulmate did.

Remus had been wrapped around Lily’s finger since the very first day of secondary school when she’d sat down beside him in Maths and proudly rattled off the bloody quadratic formula – and everyone knew it.

It was a fact that had initially alarmed James, resulting in many childish barbs and inflated chests – all of which had made Lily cross her arms and ignore him and huff about him at such great length that Remus had known that she was not as impervious to Potter’s charm as she liked to believe – until Remus had finally rolled his eyes, tugged him aside and bluntly told him he was gay.

Since then, James had declared undying loyalty to him and insisted that he should hang out with ‘the gang’ sometime.

Which was a bit difficult to do when Lily kept running in the other direction whenever she saw James at uni.

Just as Remus began to ponder how to ask her just who she thought she was fooling when she claimed to hate James, the bus finally rolled to a stop in front of him. Feeling faint annoyance sizzle in him at how long it had taken, Remus jumped up and joined the queue, impatiently jiggling his leg as he mentally yelled at everyone in front of him to hurry the fuck up. Jesus Christ, did the bus driver have to count the change so _slowly?_

Of course, when it was his time to flash his uni rider at the driver, he was nothing short of polite. “Thank you,” he said, none of the irritation blaring in his mind slipping into his voice.

He turned to face the bottom deck and had to bite back a groan: it was jam-packed.

The noise from upstairs let him know that it boasted a similar situation and in any case, he wasn’t feeling brave enough to go all the way up just to find himself confronted with no seats. Resigned to his fate, Remus moved forward until he found a safe-looking position by the wheelchair access area, back pressed against the nearest pole.

A minute later, the bus set off at the slowest speed known to man.

Remus gritted his teeth and turned the music on his phone as loud as it would go.

It was going to be the longest forty minutes of his life. He felt like a sardine packed into a tin of other sardines, ones who stank of piss and sweat and old newspapers – there was a white guy with dreadlocks who bobbed his head to a non-existent beat and swayed too close to him for his comfort, a small woman whose vacant stare just so happened to line up with the general position of his crotch, and the bus driver who seemed to be under the impression that he was twenty minutes _early_ at the speed he was going. Words couldn’t describe the frustration Remus felt, but he was sure he’d do his best in a Twitter tirade once he was off this hellhole.

After twenty minutes of Dreads trying to melt into him by diffusion, Remus decided he’d had enough. He didn’t care if he had to fight through the fifty odd people crammed onto the bottom deck, he was going to sit on the stairs if it bloody well killed him. Steeling himself for the battle ahead, he let go of the pole behind him, took a couple of tentative steps…

And the bus slammed to a stop.

He flew forward before he had a second to think, his body slamming into the figure in front of him. Desperately, he scrambled for a grip just so he could remain upright – God, it would be just his luck to faceplant on a bloody bus, wouldn’t it? – and then he was practically wrenching the other person’s arm out of their socket and his other hand was fluttering around for a purchase and –

Jesus Christ, he was _holding their hand_.

He was holding a stranger’s hand.

On the bus.

Someone needed to _hit him_ with a bus right at this second.

Horrified, Remus snatched his hand away. “Fuck! I mean – shit, I mean – oh my god, I’m so sorry, I…” He trailed off, turning red as the person turned to smirk up at him and Jesus Christ was he good looking.

Good looking in that way that didn’t make sense. Remus’ brain short-circuited as he tried to comprehend how someone could look so beautiful, beautiful in such a vicious, savage sort of way like the coldest aristocrats in the world had gathered together to carve his face. It was sharp with Roman cheekbones and a perfectly straight English nose and a plump mouth that curled at one corner with obvious amusement. Dark waves of hair tumbled down, falling into silver flints of eyes.

Remus felt something seize deep inside of him.

“Sorry,” he muttered, mortified.

He tossed a helpless glance around and noticed with some relief that the woman who had been accidentally gazing at his crotch had vacated her seat so he pounced on it, desperate to get away. It was no use, however. No sooner had he dropped down did the man next to him sharply glance up from his phone to the world outside, let out a decisively inappropriate curse and leap up to flee before the doors shut. Moments later, the beautiful boy claimed the empty seat.

He turned to Remus, still smirking in a way that made the back of Remus’ neck flush pink. “You know, I’ve always dreamt of being groped on public transport,” he said at last, “but that’s not quite what I imagined.”

Remus could only stare at him. “I – what?”

“I mean, you must’ve seen some videos about it,” the boy continued. “Boy flirts with boy on an empty bus and the next thing you know…” He made a gesture that was more inappropriate than the other man’s words.

Remus turned red. “I…” And then it dawned on him what the boy had said. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said that the flirting usually leads to se – “

“No, before that,” he said impatiently, too distracted to blush. “What you first said to me.”

“Oh.” Understanding dawned on the boy’s face. He smirked, enunciating each word so deliberately, it felt like a caress. “I said I’ve always dreamt of being groped on public transport.”

All the air was knocked out of Remus’ lungs. He couldn’t even form a coherent thought, let alone a _reply_ as he stared at this viciously beautiful boy who had uttered the words that had been imprinted on his chest for as long as he could remember.

It had been something of a point of shame, his soulmate mark, as he had been growing up. His parents had winced, wondering just what kind of girl he was going to eventually bring home. His classmates had jeered in the changing rooms, some of them slapping him on the back for finding himself someone ready to get “down and dirty” as Mulciber had put it in Year Eleven. Even Lily had cocked her head to the side and commended him for managing to get something worse than hers.

( _Jesus Christ, woman, that was my fucking foot!_ cried the looping script on her chest.)

“Oh,” he finally managed.

The boy’s smirk softened into a smile. “Hi,” he said much more gently. He held out his hand. “I’m Sirius.”

Still half in a daze, Remus reached out to shake it. It felt strong. Warm. “Remus.”

“Like the son of Mars.”

They were still gripping hands. “Yeah. You’re named after the star, right?”

“Orion’s dog.” Sirius’ soft smile had a bitter twang for a brief moment, his hand tightening on Remus’. He let them both relax. “So, _Remus – “_ The name left his tongue coloured with triumph. “You don’t have any plans, do you? Because there’s a great place in town called The Leaky I bet you’re dying to eat at.”

He thought of the assignments he hadn’t yet managed to get around to, to the dodgy conclusion on his essay for Capitalism In Historical Perspective class and his prior determination to get some done in the time he was supposed to spend in a Microeconomics Analysis lecture.

“Sure,” he said.

Sirius smiled at him so brilliantly that he could already feel his day looking up.


	2. bawling babies, beautiful boys and the fresh prince of bel air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Remus mows a lawn and Sirius wears ripped jeans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guize, i am weak af and continuing this. where is it going to go?? god knows. i am Prepared.

Remus was mowing the lawn, the latest track by _Catfish and the Bottlemen_ tearing through his ears to ricochet around his skull above the dull roar of the machine in front of him, when there was a light tap on his elbow. Because he’d been rather zoned out, he jolted to reality with a rough jerk of his arm and a startled exclamation that went something like, “Jesus fuck!” before he registered who the tap belonged to.

Sirius Something-or-the-Other raised an eyebrow. “That’s blasphemous,” he informed Remus solemnly with the suggestion of amusement hovering about his mouth.

Somewhere beyond the haze of confusion smothering it, his brain snapped a few commands and Remus felt his shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “I’m not religious,” he said distantly.

“Neither am I,” Sirius said, the feigned severe set of his jaw falling away. He put his hands in the pocket of his ripped jeans with an air of studied nonchalance. “You know, I called your name about half a dozen times from the path.”

Remus was still staring at him, light eyebrows drawn together. His earphones dangled beside the burgundy drawstrings of his Cokeworth Community School leavers’ hoodie, still blaring music. Beside him, the lawnmower hungered for more grass until he silenced it with the push of a button.

“What are you doing here?” he spluttered, ignoring the other boy’s play at innocence.

He remembered the teasing grin Sirius’ had fired at him on the bus, the way he had wielded his looks like a weapon, Remus helpless under its assault. There had been something _dangerous_ about him even then, a warning crackling like the sparks of a fire that would burn Remus if he strayed too close – but he’d never thought the guy would actually _track him down._

Unbidden, several newspaper headlines about deranged soulmates murdering each other passed through Remus’ mind.

“I was visiting my cousin,” Sirius explained, jabbing a thumb behind them to Remus’ next door neighbour. “And then I saw you mowing your lawn. Figured I might as well say hi.”

Or maybe Remus was overreacting as per usual.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Sirius echoed albeit with a much more shit-eating grin.

Remus tried his hardest to pretend like the sight of it didn’t make him feel a lot hotter than he had any right to be in the October chill. “I…” His eyes zeroed in on which house Sirius had indicated. “You’re related to the Tonks?”

“Andy’s my cousin,” he confirmed. “About the only one I can stand.”

Remus eyed the boy in front of him, mentally comparing him to his neighbour of six months and counting. Andy Tonks, while perfectly polite, walked with the sort of purpose only the privileged were privy to, an elegance that demanded respect. She was incongruous to the chewing gum-littered pavements of Cokeworth that straddled a dismal river, to the puffs of smoke the factories downstream panted into the air. And she was intimidating, her hooded eyes and the flat line of her mouth only softened by the curves she had retained after giving birth to Dora. Her beauty was a feral sort.

Remus could see the resemblance between them.

“It’s strange that we’ve never seen each other before,” he said when he realised he was staring. (And that Sirius was staring back.) “Do you come here often?”

He rocked back on his heels. “Nah. I might be able to stand Andy, but I’m the only one in the family who can. I don’t get many chances to visit.” His mouth twisted in the same way it had on the bus four days ago when he had revealed his name, bitter and hard. Then, he looked at Remus and it softened.

Briefly, Remus wondered how soft it really was.

He cleared his throat. “Uh. That’s – shit.” He flushed red as the words left his mouth. Jesus Christ, he was not cut out for this sort of thing.

Luckily, Sirius only laughed. “Yeah,” he agreed. “It is. But I’m officially one hundred and fifteen miles away from the rest of them so it’s not so shit anymore.” Somehow, his eyes managed to soften further, never wavering from Remus.

“That’s…” Their unbroken stare scrambled Remus’ mind. “Less shit.” In an effort to recollect himself, he looked away and wrapped his hands around the handle of the lawnmower again, swallowing the words that caught like glass in his throat. “You should probably see her then.”

Fuck. That sounded like he actually wanted him to go. Fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck.

There was a rustle of movement to his left as Sirius leaned forward. He draped himself across the lawnmower in a pose that would’ve ordinarily had Remus scoffing at how ridiculous it looked – as it stood, the decreased distance between them only had heat creep up his spine to warm his cheeks. He was acutely aware of the pale white scars on his chest, the words they gathered together to form emblazoned across his body like a beacon for the boy opposite him.

Sirius tilted his head to the side, every bit a mountain lion after the prey he wanted. “You should come with,” he said.

Remus blinked. Several times.

He avoided Sirius’ eyes and the hungry gleam that had replaced the soft. His own landed on the rips on the boy’s jeans – the tears looked messy, amateur and deliberate, like the boy had seized his most expensive pair on purpose and had attacked them with blunt scissors.

“I need to mow the lawn,” was what finally left his mouth.

“I noticed,” Sirius said.

“Then why invite me in?”

He shrugged and then smiled, the flash of his teeth nothing short of wicked. “Because being groped on public transport isn’t my only dream. I’ve also dreamt of inviting pretty boys into my cousin’s house to watch reruns of _The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_ over a bowl of crisps and popcorn while we pretend like we can’t hear her daughter screaming for food. Multiple times.”

Before he could help himself, Remus laughed. “Oddly specific dream,” he said, eyes still crinkled with his grin.

“I’m an oddly specific person.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Neither do I, to be honest.” Sirius raised his eyebrows challengingly. “Are you coming or what?”

Remus knew that if he skipped out on this chance, he was probably the biggest fucking idiot in the world. He shrugged, pretending like his stomach wasn’t trying out for the bloody Olympics. “I guess. Let me mow this lawn first, though.”

“Alright.” Sirius leaned away, rolling his shoulders back. “You mow that lawn and you mow it good. I’ll be over there when you’re done.” He jabbed a finger to the path in front of the Tonks’.

Remus turned away from him to hide his smile, popping his earphones back in. His playlist had moved to a different song and as Vann McCann sang about racing through soundtracks, Remus swiped the lawnmower over the square of grass in front of his house, trying to pretend like he wasn’t rushing through the job in his eagerness to spend more time with the boy he was apparently fated to be with. He might have been bloody well useless when he was around him, but even these two short encounters with Sirius had been thrilling enough to make him want more.

If Sirius was an inferno, Remus would gladly burn.

At last, he dragged the lawnmower past his garden gate before shutting it and reaching up to slide the lock across. He glanced at the now silent machine by his side and decided he could always stow it away in the shed later before he clasped his hand around the uppermost edge of the gate and scrabbled his way up to haul himself over. Sirius met him at the Tonks’ door and, rather than pressing the bell like Remus and any other normal person would’ve done, hammered on the door.

“Andy!” he yelled through the wood. “It’s me!”

He continued to attack it for a few more seconds in which Remus stared at him, mortified, before the door swung open and Andromeda Tonks stood before them, five feet nine inches of pure irritation. Even with mashed potato on her blouse and a grumpy-looking Dora gnawing on a strand of her hair, she radiated danger.

“Sirius Black,” she hissed, jabbing a finger at him, “if you ever knock on my door like that again, I’ll hit you with a goddamn frying pan.”

He grinned. “Love you too, Andy.” He dropped a kiss to her cheek and then turned to Dora. “Dora! My girl!” When all the baby offered him was an unimpressed look before she continued to devour her mum’s hair, he winced. “Rejected again. Damn, that hurts.”

“You’re such an idiot, Sirius,” Andy sighed in a manner that suggested she sighed this often. “Just get inside.”

Tossing her a wink, he brushed past her, leaving Remus to awkwardly hover on the doorstep. “This is Remus, by the way,” he said, glancing back. He beckoned him to follow with a twitch of his fingers. “He likes to grope strangers on the bus.”

Remus turned red. “I do _not!”_ he exclaimed, horrified.

Andy rolled her eyes. “Ignore him, he’s a prat. Hi, Remus,” she said much more kindly. “I’ve been meaning to pop around to yours to thank your mum for taking care of Dora the other night. She likes banoffee pie, right?”

He tried to fight back his grimace at spending more time with Dora after that dreadful night. Dear lord, the girl might be cute, but her lungs certainly fucking weren’t.

“Oh, she loves it,” he managed.

“Excellent,” she hissed victoriously, shutting the door with her foot. “You and Sirius watch tv for a while. I’m going to try to make sure that this one manages to get something in her _other than my hair_.” She yanked the damp strand out of her daughter’s chubby fists with a fierce look.

Remus winced, already knowing what was coming next. Dora, outraged at her mum’s betrayal, scrunched up her face, the creamy pallor burning red within seconds – and then an ear-splitting howl Remus had hoped he would never hear again burst out of her chest. He hastened into the living room with a barely audible apology as the toddler shook the foundations of the house.

Sirius was sprawled over the mink carpet, a boxset for all six seasons of _The Fresh Prince of Bel Air_ in front of him. “Dora crying again?”

An angry shriek answered the question for him.

He grimaced again. “Yes.”

Sirius snickered. “Look at the bright side,” he said lightly, slotting the first disc into the box. “ _We_ won’t have to worry about any of that.”

He tossed Remus a smirk over his shoulder that was nothing short of mischievous, his teeth claiming his bottom lip with a soft bite. A fierce blush chased away Remus’ earlier grimace, his body warming from head to toe. Coughing hastily, he sank to the floor and fixed his eyes determinedly on the screen.

And then made sure to place a pillow on his lap.

Just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay but seriously let me know what you think of this bc i don't /write/ the marauders and these chapters keep being written at freaking two am while the house is dead quiet and my muse is all over the place. also!! comment potential scenes you'd like to see in the future and i'll see if they inspire anything in me.
> 
> next chapter features james and lily


	3. student unions, soulmates and somewhat dramatic table-rolls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which hell hath no fury like a Lily scorned and Sirius finds it hilarious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am in love with james potter. that is all.

“God, I hate coffee,” Lily said as she sipped on Remus’ grande medium-roasted coffee with a splash of semi-skimmed milk, hazelnut syrup, three shots of espresso and whipped cream, though the whipped cream had mostly dissolved on his tongue by then. “It’s so bitter.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’d think you’d stop drinking mine, then…”

Purely to spite him, Lily took another sip.

Then, she grimaced and pushed it back towards him, carefully avoiding his meticulous notes on data handling. “You can keep that rubbish, I won’t miss it.” To add to her point, she promptly popped a tiny rectangle of peppermint chewing gum – Extra, by the looks of it – into her mouth.

Wordlessly, Remus held his hand out until she offered him one too. Flashing her a smile, he returned to the notebook in front of him, pale brown eyebrows drawn together as he struggled to decipher Emma Vance’s notes on the lecture he’d missed the day before. Lily had teased him endlessly when he had dragged her to the SU for this, stating that though everyone claimed first year didn’t matter, of _course_ he was the one scrambling to keep up after a single unattended lecture.

Naturally, he pointed out how she had ran the hour-long walk to their college in Lower Sixth while she’d tearfully phoned him about how Tuney had crashed the car.

“In my defence,” Lily had replied, blushing fiercely, “she really is a horrible driver.”

He had stifled a smile. “You’re too harsh on her, Lils. I’m sure everyone reverses right into a lamppost now and then.”

So there they were in the Student Union, Remus’ work conquering the platform of pine that was the booth table they’d claimed as their own, a cup of coffee powering him through the task of deciphering Emma Vance’s truly horrendous handwriting. Lily had no work of her own, though she didn’t seem to mind being forced indoors, content to tease Remus and idly braid small strands of her fiery hair.

“You still haven’t told me much about Lover Boy, you know,” she said after a while, green cat-like eyes trained on the split end she was attempting to peel off.

Remus paused in the middle of an intense attempt to figure out whether Emma had written the letter _f_ or _k._ “First of all, his name is Sirius, not _Lover Boy._ ”

Lily smirked. “How defensive of you.”

“Second of all,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “there’s nothing to tell. We watched _The Fresh Prince_ and ate a load of popcorn. Nothing more, nothing less.”

She cocked her head. “He didn’t try to kiss you?” she asked, words coloured with disappointment. “What a turd. _Please_ tell me you at least have his number.”

“Of course, I have his number,” Remus said. “He’s my soulmate, isn’t he?”

Though he really tried not to, the admission had a pink flush swoop up the curve of his neck and across his hollow cheeks, dancing across his fine features. The sight made Lily positively giddy with happiness, a fact he pointedly ignored simply because he didn’t know how to react to it. What _was_ the normal protocol for meeting your mate anyway? He had wondered it half a hundred times as he had texted Sirius these past few days, their messages teetering on a fine line between friendship and something… more. Ordinarily, he would’ve asked Lily such a thing, but she was clearly unable to help this time.

A fact she proved when there was suddenly a cry of “EVANS!” that cracked through the SU like a whip and smacked her beam right off.

“Pack up,” she hissed frantically, shooting to her feet. “ _Now.”_

Remus didn’t even bother to determine where James Potter, the only person who could cry out a surname that obnoxiously and send Lily in such a panic, was and simply dropped his pen and scrambled to gather his things in some semblance of order. On the other side of the booth, Lily slung her bag onto her shoulder and snatched up the coffee, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she prepared to move –

But it was no use.

In a move that was entirely too dramatic for the situation, James jumped onto the seat of the adjacent booth and literally rolled across the table until he stumbled to a stop in front of them, his jet black hair messier than ever, a flash of an olive stomach visible where his top had ridden up and a smirk the size of the planet on his face.

“I see you’ve gotten ready to welcome me, Evans,” he said, inflecting the words with just the right tone to set her off.

Lily scowled. “I swear to God, Potter, your head couldn’t get fatter if you tried. Does your neck hurt holding that boulder of a thing up?”

“Why? Want to massage it for me?”

“I’d rather strangle you instead.”

“Ooh. Kinky. I like it.”

“Fuck off.”

James pouted. Literally pouted. Before this year, Remus hadn’t even known people still _did_ that, let alone boys who were said to be the uni’s latest find for their elite football team and new sweetheart. But apparently, they did.

“One day, Evans,” he said, “you’re going to break my heart.”

The look she gave him was so cold that Remus felt the temperature in the room drop by a few degrees. “In case you haven’t noticed, that’s the point. I mean it when I say you should leave, Potter.”

His smug look faded somewhat before it returned in full force. “Unluckily for you, sweetheart, I’m actually not here for you.”

“You literally yelled my name across the SU.”

“Don’t act like it didn’t turn you on.”

Lily looked like she wanted to grab a spade, dig a hole and then either crawl into it herself or bury James alive. Her eyes fluttered close and she inhaled a sharp breath, reaching out for the last vestiges of her patience.

“Jesus Christ, you are so _annoying_ ,” she began, but then a new voice cut her off, one Remus knew all too well.

“Dear Lord, you’re like a married couple already.”

Remus, Lily and James all jerked around to see the latter’s friends at the booth James had so dramatically rolled over only minutes before: one pale-faced, watery-eyed boy, who perched on the edge of his seat and watched the volley of insults with nothing short of rapture, the other dark haired, mischievous and positively wicked as he perched on the table, legs dangling towards the ground where his chunky boots teased the surface.

“It’s quite sickening,” the second one added.

Remus stared.

It was the first time he’d seen Sirius in front of other people – other people who mattered anyway – and he was wholly unprepared. For quite possibly the longest moment in history, he couldn’t even form the suggestion of a thought, too overwhelmed with the sight of Sirius in a black Arctic Monkeys t-shirt and even blacker jeans, again looking like they’d been ripped by himself, and the oversized camo jacket that hung from his shoulders.

His attention was on James and Lily, the first smirking and the second taken aback, teeth digging into his lower lip to bite back his amusement. When he let go, his mouth was as red as a cherry and so fucking kissable that Remus didn’t even flinch when Sirius’ eyes flickered to him and noticed where his focus had zeroed in on.

“Remus,” he said, his mouth forming the name letter by letter as if he had personally created it, as if he had done so just so he alone could say it over and over again as many times as he wanted.

“Uh.” He blinked and dragged his eyes up. “Hi.”

Lily’s head swivelled back and forth between the two. “You guys know each other?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sirius nodded before he could say anything, leaned back on his hands and smirked. “I’m Sirius and I’ve always dreamt of being groped on public transport. Remus over there happily obliged.”

Immediately, his ears sizzled red. “You seriously need to stop saying that,” he told him. “People are going to think I’m some fucking… sexual predator or something.”

“Nope. Just my soulmate.”

He sent Remus a smile, one so lazy and accepting and _wonderful_ that he couldn’t do much more than grin back like an idiot, the curve of his mouth a little too wide and showing a little too much teeth and a little too bloody happy considering he’d only seen this guy twice. But damn it, Sirius might’ve destroyed any hope of his insides making sense anymore, a feeling that Remus happened to fucking love.

Lily was having a little more trouble adjusting. “Wait, what? _You’re_ Sirius?” she nearly shrieked, still looking back and forth between the two as if some other alternative would suddenly pop up.

“The one and only,” he confirmed.

Her lips parted in shock. “But… But you’re – _his_ best mate.” She jerked her head at James who, up until that point, had mostly been watching with a stupid grin on his face.

Now, though, he slung an arm around Lily’s shoulder (which she promptly flung away) and said proudly, “He sure is. Looks like you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon, Evans.”

From the look on her face, Remus was 68% sure that Lily was about to scream a dramatic denial. She looked like she had just been told that her dad had passed away in a tragic accident. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her – after all, James really was on a whole new level.

The boy in question bounced over to Remus and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You know what, Remy boy,” he said with a charitable sort of grin, “I’m actually glad you’re Sirius’ soulmate. I mean, we might not have gotten along much at the beginning – “

“Because you thought he was dating Lily,” the third boy reminded him, voice quavering only the slightest bit.

James glared at him. “Thank you, Peter, for your completely unnecessary and untrue input.”

As Sirius snorted with laughter, Peter flushed an ugly pink. Remus felt a twinge of pity for him; it was clear that the bloke just wanted to make a good impression and fit in. He imagined it would be hard to be hanging out with two sets of soulmates, even if one pair seemingly hated each other’s guts (or at least in Lily’s case they did). That sort of thing hit hard. Remus resolved to be kind to him in the future.

“You _were_ a bit jealous,” he agreed to James who then glared at him.

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were,” Lily said with a distasteful twitch of her nose. “You kept calling him Raymond.”

Rather than turning red in embarrassment, James let out a laugh. “Oh yeah, I did, didn’t I?” He chuckled. “I’m too funny sometimes, honestly. No hard feelings though, mate,” he added with a pat on Remus’ shoulder blade. “You seem like a good bloke.”

Peter nodded along in vigorous agreement; Sirius smirked with pride. When he caught Remus’ eye, his own dropped into a wink. Something flared deep at the bottom of his stomach in response.

“No hard feelings,” Remus echoed, pushing that aside. He returned James’ smile, carefully avoiding Lily’s outraged look. “Although I can’t say the same for Lils, of course.”

Before James could say anything, she said harshly, “It’s not the same for me. There are _such_ hard feelings here, Potter. _Such_ hard feelings. I’m hard as a fucking rock when it comes to you.”

The smile that curled his mouth then hinted at an entirely too suggestive and immature reply. A dimple split his cheek as James bit down on his bottom lip and sucked it in, trying to hold the words back. It seemed the guy had _some_ sense, at least – if he had voiced whatever was on his tongue, Remus was sure that even hell would not have been able to match Lily’s fury. Judging from the ferocious look she levelled him with, she was well aware of it too.

“Some time in the future,” James promised, “you’ll look back on this and realise it was the day you started to fall in love with me.”

She simmered dangerously. “I doubt it. You look like a fucking toad.”

“A devilishly attractive one though, no?” He ran a hand through his wild hair, messing it up even more, and threw her what he clearly thought was a charming smile. It might’ve been one had he not been such an idiot 95% of the time.

“What on… _no one speaks like that!_ I swear to God, Potter, sometimes I wonder just what the hell you’re on because – because – “

“I’m surreal and out of this world?”

Lily threw her hands in the air, spilling coffee down her bare arms. She didn’t even flinch, merely snapped, “Okay, I’m done for the day. I just – I can’t handle _this,_ ” she gestured wildly to her soulmate, “anymore. Call me if you need me, Remus.” With a dramatic toss of her hair, she spun neatly on her heel and stalked off, her boots clacking against the floor. She didn’t even bother to pass back the coffee before she left.

The four boys watched her go, Sirius and Remus both highly amused, Peter concerned and James sighing like a lovesick fool.

“I love red hair,” he declared dreamily.

Peter nodded sagely. “Red’s the best. Then, blonde.”

“Nah,” Sirius said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Brunette all the way.” He hopped off the table and turned to Remus. “I’m fucking starving, you coming?”

He stood closer than was necessarily appropriate, as close as he had that day when he’d leaned across the lawnmower towards him, all vicious smiles and low voices, his breath ghosting over Remus’ face. Now that they were standing properly, spines as straight as a pole, he noticed that Sirius was somewhat shorter than him, the top of his shaggy head lining up perfectly with Remus’ nose. If and when they’d kiss, he’d probably have to stand on his toes a little and tilt his head.

The thought pleased him more than it probably should’ve.

There was no kissing to be had at that moment, however, because Peter promptly leapt from his seat at Sirius’ words and announced that they had to eat at the new falafel place that had just opened up down the road which finally zapped James out of his reverie since he was apparently obsessed with any cuisine that wasn’t British and did Remus know that James had an uncle who had recently moved to Dubai?

It turned out that he did not, in fact, know this so James launched into an enthusiastic report of just what had spurred his uncle to move out of the country and the exact process he took to do so. Peter hung onto his every word, asking questions here and there that James happily answered, while Sirius rolled his eyes in a manner that suggested James did this very often. The slight smile on his face, however, indicated that he didn’t mind half as much as he pretended to and would probably knock out anyone who did.

Luckily, Remus didn’t.

Though that might have been down to the fact that he couldn’t focus on anything other than the fact that Sirius had linked their fingers together and was leading him away – away from Emma Vance’s dreadful notes and the cold, spilled coffee on the floor and outside to the food and the laughter and the sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really hate how i end these chapters ffs but that's probably bc i always write them at, like, 2am


	4. shirtless snaps, saucy dreams and sarah jane adventures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there are marauders, marauders and - oh, marauders.

Remus was drinking a Cherry Coke with three cubes of ice delicately clinking against the sides when James ran out of the bathroom sans t-shirt. He stopped short, his breath misting over the glass, not because James being shirtless was a particularly breath-taking sight (he was a tad too skinny for Remus’ tastes, though he could hardly point fingers), but because there was a look of absolute _glee_ on James’ face that spelt trouble. Behind him, Peter looked just as eager, practically quivering in his socks.

His thoughts were proved right when James exclaimed, “Remus! Take a picture of me!”

“You what.”

Remus’ flat tone did not put him off; if anything, James’ grin grew wider. “Get out your phone, pull up Snapchat and take a cheeky pic of me to send to dear old Evans.”

He didn’t even know what to say. “What?” he repeated with a crinkle of his brow. “Why would I do that?”

“Er, so she falls deeply in love with my magnificent body, of course,” James said like it was obvious. Hands on his hips, he assumed a dramatic stare off into the distance. “Many have said I look just like Adonis.”

“Did all those people have your eyesight?” The quip, sadly, did not come from Remus, but from his other half, who strolled out of the kitchen area with a packet of the worst kind of Doritos, the abominable Tangy Cheese flavour. He stopped just behind where Remus sat on the sofa, bringing along a pungent waft.

James scowled. “I don’t like you,” he said plainly.

“Really, Potter, your comebacks are just _too_ good sometimes. That one fucking burned, mate, how did you come up with it?”

“Stop.”

“No, _you_ stop with the savagery. Us poor innocents don’t stand a chance when you’re spitting out mad insults like that left, right and centre like a bloody machinegun – “

Unable to help himself, Remus began to snicker. The noise beckoned James’ attention who, trying his best to seem unimpressed with his best mate’s taunts, focused on his original goal as if there had been no interruption.

“Listen, Remy boy, you need to do me this favour. Just take a picture of me as if it’s a candid, but make sure to get my mark on camera, yeah? And then just casually send it to Evans. You don’t even need to say anything, just send it.”

He said it so simply, as if it was as easy as calculating what one plus one equalled. And yet to Remus, this seemed like one of those situations from back in Year One when he’d confidently answer that it was _two_ and then some smartarse would snigger that nope, it was a window and then there’d be an outburst of laughter that would haunt him for the rest of the term.

Because there was no way in hell he could just casually send Lily a shirtless picture of James Potter, not without seriously fearing for his life.

“That is the worst plan I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said. And he’d heard a lot in the short time he’d started hanging out with the boys.

James’ face fell. “What? Why? It’s not even that bad!”

“You want me to send a picture of you shirtless to Lily. As if I regularly send her pictures of shirtless guys on Snapchat.”

“I’m not _just_ a shirtless guy. I’m her soulmate.”

He indicated the proof on his chest. Elegant script looped across the olive skin, shining pink like burns halfway on their way to healing. Lily’s first words to James claimed him as her own: _Shit – sorry, I mean – sorry!_ Glancing at it, Remus wondered whether there were people out there with normal soul marks.

“Who she hates,” he reminded.

“Who she _claims_ to hate.”

“Very convincingly,” he said, even as he remembered all the times he’d had an inkling that Lily didn’t despise James as much as she liked to pretend.

In a manner that was entirely too much like him, James stuck out his lower lip in a pout and brought out the doe-like eyes. Remus was impassive, meeting it with a stony look, but behind him there was a sharp exhale of awful breath –  and a gust of that fucking Tangy Cheese – and Sirius groaned.

“I’ll do it,” he sighed. “I know the password to Remus’ phone anyway.”

James literally pumped a fist in the air. “Yes! Point to Potter!”

The owner of the phone tilted his head back until he was peering at the underside of Sirius’ jaw where the faint shadow of stubble was beginning to emerge. “Thanks,” he deadpanned.

He shrugged. “I can’t help it. He brings out those chocolate-drop eyes and I’m a fucking sucker.”

“Weakling.”

In response, he dropped a kiss to his forehead.

Remus closed his eyes and not just because of the Tangy Cheese breath. He could sense Sirius moving away from him, could hear James and Peter excitedly getting into position, but he felt no urge to join in because that meant breaking this moment and moving from this place, that meant leaving the heartbeat of time when there had been chapped lips pressed against his brow and a content sigh swelling against his ribs.

Sirius hadn’t kissed him yet. At least, not properly. There had been moments – fleeting, shadowy, secretive, moments under the slanting light of the moon and in the uncomfortable, crumb-scattered seats at the cinemas and the loud, bustling din of the SU – where he had thought it was going to happen, where he had seen Sirius’s eyes turn charcoal with desire and felt his throat dry up in anticipation and _wanted, wanted, wanted_ , but nothing had come of it. Sirius had always turned away.

He didn’t know the protocol for soulmates. In some cultures, couples were married within weeks of locating their other half; in others, partners didn’t undress in front of each other for fear of discovering they were not fated to be. There were dating websites dedicated to the search, apps where you met up for the occasional fuck and then went back to your own lives, people who spent their entire lives on the road to scour the world for their soulmate.

His own parents had met at a kebab shop at 2am – not the most romantic of settings, but their relationship had been pretty solid since. Of course, his mum liked to say as she ran a hand through her husband’s salt-and-pepper hair, they’d launched into dating straight away. On the other hand, Lily was currently refusing to even acknowledge James as her soulmate. So really, he didn’t know what the fuck to do about Sirius’ refusal to kiss him.

They were constantly teetering on the edge between being, you know, _actual soulmates_ and just behaving as friends.

Sighing, he opened his eyes to see the object of his thoughts crouched on the floor at what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable angle, propped up on his elbows as he pointed Remus’ phone at a James Potter who was ‘casually’ leaning against the foot of the sofa Remus had claimed. Peter stood on an armchair, fiddling with the lighting as per Sirius’ instructions.

“No, a little lower – _little_ , Pete, I said _little,_ this isn’t a fucking séance, turn it up – Jesus Christ, are you trying to blind me with that light? Do you _want_ him to be fucking whitewashed? No? Thought not. Little lower, a liiittle – yes, that’s the spot. Smashed it. Alright Jamie boy, look towards Pete and laugh like he’s cracked a hilarious joke for once in his life.”

“Hey!”

James cackled.

“Er… yeah, maybe not. We want to attract the girl, not send her running in the other direction. Fuck, you look like fucking Freddie Krueger in this photo. Laugh like McGonagall just asked you out instead.”

“If McGonagall asked me out, I’d be crying tears of joy. I love that woman. And that sexy tartan skirt of hers.”

“Now is not the time for an affair, James!” Sirius barked. “Focus!”

Rolling his eyes, Remus slapped a hand to his face. Why the fuck had he decided that hanging out with this bunch was a good idea? They were off their bloody rockers.

* * *

He woke up to the sound of his ringtone.

Jerking out of a disturbing dream of a woman wearing tartan garters in a pool of Tangy Cheese Doritos, Remus fumbled blindly for his phone, whispering a quick sorry as James grunted at him from across the room to shut the fuck up. Not even glancing at the screen, he swiped right and lifted it to his ear.

“Hmm… whuzzit?”

“Remus Lupin,” hissed a furious voice on the other end. “Why the hell did I come home to find seven snaps of a shirtless James fucking Potter sent to my phone?”

It took him a solid minute to register that the voice belonged to Lily and another to digest her words. “W-What?” he mumbled, struggling to blink away his sleep.

“SEVEN SNAPS!” she shrieked. “Not one, not two, but _seven_ infinite-second snaps of that prat sitting on the floor like the arrogant berk he is and oh so _casually_ shirtless. God, I know you’ve been hanging out with them for the past month and I’m not going to stop you, but seriously? You’re aiding and abetting the enemy?”

He couldn’t even concentrate on anything she was saying. It took all of his energy just to strain against the tantalising fingers of sleep, to not give into the coaxes of the darkness. Thoughts obscured by a fog, he could only manage a mumbled apology, though for what he didn’t quite know.

“You’re not even paying attention, are you?” Lily broke off in the middle of her rant.

Far too tired to appease her, he went for honesty. “No.”

There was a long silence. And then she sighed, “I suppose this is what I get for calling you at 3am. Goodnight, Remus. Tell Potter if he sends me a shirtless picture one more time, I’ll kick him in the face.”

“That’s nice,” he murmured sleepily, his phone already slipping from his grasp.

It hurtled towards the ground, landing on Peter’s head as Remus began to fall back into whatever bizarre dream he’d been unceremoniously dragged out of beforehand. Disjointed fragments of thoughts tumbled through his mind, nonsensical yet appearing to make complete sense in those heartbeats before he lost himself to sleep.

He thought of James posing against the sofa, one leg outstretched, the other bent at the knee to press a bare foot against his calf, a crooked grin tilting his mouth – of eating popcorn and drinking beer as they watched reruns of the fucking _Crystal Maze_ and _Sarah Jane Adventures_ on tv for hours until it was too late for Remus to go home – of Peter suggesting that they all kip in the living room of their flat since no one could be bothered to move – of Sirius’s wrist pressed against his own, his pulse straining against his skin to join Remus’ as they very nearly held hands – of Sirius’ mouth on his forehead, nasty Tangy Cheese breath and all –

And then the Tangy Cheese breath was gone and his mouth was on Remus’, hungry and insistent, pushing forward with a crushing intensity, his large hands running up his arms and over his shoulders to hold him by the back of his head, hips tilting forward, their breaths a sharp staccato in the emptiness of the flat.

Sirius kissing him, wanting him, needing him –

_Sirius, Sirius, Sirius._

* * *

 

The second time he woke up, it was to freezing water and a startled gasp, his lungs straining for air. He shot up, legs tangled up in his blanket and tumbled over the side of the sofa in his frenzy, falling right onto Peter. Unfortunately, an eighteen year old boy crushing you was a tad more noticeable than a phone to the head in the middle of the night so Peter woke with a shout, thrashing desperately like a fish out of water.

By the time Remus managed to untangle himself from him, James was laughing so hard he had collapsed to the floor. Tears pooled in his murky eyes.

“Oh God,” he gasped before he erupted into further laughter. “Oh _God._ ”

Peter rubbed red eyes. “S’not funny, James,” he said reproachfully.

“Yeah, it really is,” the boy said and then laughed some more.

Even a stampede couldn’t have been louder than the fit that overcame him; the flat swelled with the sound of his amusement, so dorky and genuine that Remus could feel his lips twitching despite himself, his glare softening. It even dragged Sirius out of sleep – the same Sirius who regularly slept through his alarms because he claimed he’d had enough practice ignoring his mother – who, far from a morning person, reached for the nearest thing he could and threw it at James’ head.

“Shut up,” he grumbled and then collapsed into a snore.

James, still grinning widely, rubbed absently at where the remote had bounced off his head. “Come on, boys, let’s get started on breakfast. That one will probably be up the second he smells the bacon.”

Since there was no way of following Sirius into dreamland, Remus rolled his eyes and rose to his feet albeit with a dozen or so curses under his breath. Fuck, the water was cold. And… wet.

“You’re such a twat, you know,” he informed James.

“The twat who’s about to make you breakfast. Play nice, Lupin, or I might just poison you.”

“You might just do it anyway. Like fuck can you cook.”

“Um, actually, I’ve been taking lessons off Peter,” he said, most affronted. “I now know how to make an omelette.”

Peter nodded as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. “It’s true. It was really good as well. James can do anything he puts his mind to.”

Remus indulged him with a smile. Honest to God, he liked Peter and enjoyed his company, but the boy regarded James as half a god, something that did neither of them any good – Peter was constantly trying to secure his place in the group despite being an integral part of it already and God knew James didn’t need a bigger ego. But actually criticising Pete _out loud_ was a little like kicking a puppy. You just didn’t do it.

“He can do everything but Evans,” Sirius mumbled from where he still lolled on the floor.

James, whose smile had indeed turned a little bit smugger at Peter’s praise, scowled and glanced back. “Go to sleep,” he snapped, turning red. His swagger towards the kitchen was a little less confident than usual.

Remus followed suit, absently tugging at the collar of his t-shirt to alleviate the stickiness of the cotton. Even after a fair few visits, he still couldn’t get over the fact that the boys had their own flat. They’d skipped the experience of student accommodation entirely since they were loaded and James’ parents had put a deposit on this place the second he had confirmed he would be making the move the summer that had just passed. Bloody Southerners.

It was a fairly decent grab as well. Three bedrooms, a sleek bathroom and a spacious kitchen/diner/living room. The sofas were comfortable, their fridge was always stocked and their rent wasn’t half-bad either considering how close they were to the city centre. In Remus’ book, they were living the life. Had he chosen a uni a little further away, he probably would have been stuck in shitty accommodation with some pasty git named Sam who made the flat stink of weed and always forgot his keys so woke them all up by hammering on the door at, like, three in the morning.

He shook himself out of his thoughts as Peter busied himself with bringing out all the ingredients. As the plump boy bent down to wrestle the eggs out from the cupboard under the sink, James leaned over.

“Speaking of Evans,” he said lowly, “did she say anything about the snaps?”

For all his bravado, there was genuine worry in his expression in that moment. With a little pang in his chest, Remus realised that though James behaved like a prat around Lily in every waking moment they spent together and seemed to delight in the sight of her ears smoking red, the bloke really did like her. Maybe it was just the fact they were soulmates, or maybe James would’ve been attracted to her regardless. He didn’t have a bloody clue.

Whatever it was, it meant that any notion of mentioning the fuzzy memory of a late-night phone call he'd had was tossed out the window.

“Um, no, not really,” he said. “I haven’t checked my phone yet.”

“Oh.” James leaned back as Peter emerged, triumphantly holding a plastic box of eggs in the air. Smart Price. Interesting. “Well, you probably should.”

“Probably should what?” Peter asked.

“Brush his teeth,” he said smoothly. “I like you and all, Remus, but boy am I glad I’m not Sirius. Imagine waking up to _that_.” Snickering, he dodged the blow to his head.

“Poor me, you mean. He eats Tangy Cheese Doritos.”

“What’s wrong with Tangy Cheese Doritos?”

“Um, have you smelled them?” he said like it was obvious. His face tightened in disgust. “Bleugh, just thinking about it makes me want to fucking vomit. Why do you even have them in your flat?”

James picked up a packet of wholemeal bread. “Because life’s too short to be worrying about whether other people approve of the aroma of what you’re eating, Remus. _God’s sake._ ”

“And also because – James, you’ve dropped a piece of bread – we were avoiding that creepy guy in Tesco’s,” Peter added as he fiddled with the stove. He whipped out a non-stick frying pan from seemingly out of the blue and cracked an egg onto it. “Remember?”

James nodded like this made sense, leaving Remus to knit his brows together, partly sceptical but mostly lost. When neither of the boys seemed inclined to provide an explanation – Peter was poking at the egg sizzling on the pan, oddly content for once, while James was clumsily buttering a stack of slices of bread – he rolled his eyes and asked for one.

“Um, well, there’s this boy who’s been following James about a bit,” said Peter, sounding oddly excited about the prospect of a stalker. “He must go to the uni because we first saw him in the SU, didn’t we?” He looked towards James for confirmation who gave it with a swipe of his butterknife through the air. “And, well, he doesn’t seem to like any of us, even though we’ve never talked to him before, and now we keep seeing him everywhere. It’s seriously freaky.” His voice wavered with the thrill of it all.

Unconvinced, he tossed them a disbelieving look. “Seeing him a lot doesn’t mean he’s stalking you.”

“He is too,” he protested. “He even got in an argument with James in the queue at Starbucks the other day."

“ _Sirius_ got in an argument with James in the queue at Starbucks the other day. You’re telling me that he stalks James too?”

“Followed me all the way here, didn’t he?” the boy in question grinned. For someone who claimed to be followed by a stranger, he was incredibly carefree about the situation. “Nah, you’re right, the guy probably isn’t stalking me, but he was definitely following us in Tesco’s. Kept cropping up in every aisle we were at, even the feminine care section.” Before Remus could ask why they were in the feminine care section, he added somewhat maliciously, “Probably should’ve walked into the shampoo aisle. Maybe then the greasy git could’ve done something about his damn hair.”

Peter burst into giggles; Remus rolled his eyes again.

Catching this, James insisted, “I’m being serious. You would’ve thought it was monsoon season the way he was dripping all over the place.”

Despite himself, he felt a smile curl up the corners of his mouth. Biting down on it, he turned away and busied himself with getting a glass of water. He probably shouldn’t have found it funny – he had noticed that sometimes, the boys had a cruel streak in them, small biting comments that were thrown out with little care. Once upon a time, he’d been on the receiving end of similar stuff from other people. But really, they were all harmless asides; nothing actually vicious was directed at anybody and in any case, he really liked hanging out with them.

Lily would always be his best friend, the person he confided in with everything. Sometimes, they knew each other a little _too_ well if he was being honest. But he had never really managed to get along with guys in the first place and once he’d sort of inadvertently come out at the start of AS, the majority of them had started to avoid him like he was the plague. Because Cokeworth was progressive as fuck apparently.

So really, he’d _missed_ this. All his life he had missed this. Missed it, missed out on it - wanted it, craved it, aspired to it. And now he had finally found what felt like his own little niche in their group, even if it had been only a month or so in their company, and yeah, he was willing to overlook a few flaws if it meant keeping his place. If that meant he was a terrible person, fuck it.

“Guys, check this out,” James said proudly. “I’ve buttered the bread _beforehand_ so it all melts in when I toast it. How smart is that?”

Yeah, he was probably going to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: i think it goes without saying that i don't own the crystal maze or sarah jane adventures
> 
> author's note: okay so uni has begun which is why it took so long to write/update this (it's more of a casual, spur of the moment thing so it was sort of on the backburner for a bit), but!! i have ideas on where to take this!! fina-fucking-ly. if i do go down this route (and i probs will), things will get Serious. so like. yeah.
> 
> 3 guesses as to who james' supposed stalker is lol


End file.
